If you’ve got one of these classic spy-cameras and are interested in developing your own pictures from it, instead of paying through the nose to have a specialist do it, you may be interested in this simple DIY method from MAKE pal Alan Dove.
Here’s a skill I always wanted to learn. The chemistry program at my alma mater still actually includes glassblowing classes, but they are pretty perfunctory. Doing it right takes considerable practice, in my experience. And if you want to make apparatus, as I recall, you need access to an annealing oven. Etsy created this video portrait of their seller Kiva Ford, who makes both scientific and art glassware. [via Boing Boing]
Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, this cool vid from Jessica Rosenkrantz featuring a simple Hele-Shaw cell, which, per Wikipedia, demonstrates “Stokes Flow between two parallel flat plates separated by an infinitesimally small gap.” Further, “[v]arious problems in fluid mechanics can be approximated to Hele-Shaw flows and thus the research of these flows is of importance.”
This Instructable from Jared Foster doesn’t just show you how to make his cool persistence-of-vision business card. It takes you through the construction of a circulating etch tank, the modification of a laminating machine to make a stencil applicator, the assembly of a controller to turn a toaster into a reflow oven, and the cobbling-together of a vacuum pickup tool for SMT components. And then you get some practice using all that cool stuff making a POV business card. It even comes with obligatory American Psycho allusions.
Friday afternoon, I was vising my friend Amon Millner at Olin College. After finishing up, he invited me to go with him to the nearby Wellesley College and the Engineering Studio. Not knowing quite what to expect, but always interested in seeing hands-on learning spaces, I went along for the ride. What I saw took my breath away and left me speechless. It is still a bit mind boggling to consider what this lab has, and the amazing ideas that have come from it.
Prestigious general science journal Nature has just published a video segment on MAKE pals GenSpace NYC. GenSpace, an open dues-based DIYbio workspace in downtown Brooklyn, bills itself as “the first-ever community laboratory.” This line from their front page is highly quotable:
Make: Live ep03 video is online! Thanks to our guest Sean Ragan, we enjoyed an evening of science. Subscribe to the MAKE Podcast in iTunes, download Make: Live episode 03 in its entirety (m4v), or watch clips on YouTube. Also check out the chat room transcript! Sean Ragan – Laser Projection Microscope MAKE contributing writer […]
